Kawakami: It’s adding up to Warriors championship

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Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green (23) steals the ball away against Memphis Grizzlies’ Marc Gasol (33) in the first quarter of Game 1 of the Western Conference NBA semifinals at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, May 3, 2015. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND — There was one moment among the many, one move among the multitudes, one particularly providential part of Game 1 at Oracle Arena on Sunday.

It was presumptive MVP Stephen Curry casually dribbling into a high screen-and-roll, luring Zach Randolph to the perimeter … and then a sudden Curry fake that sent Randolph lunging to the right, a Curry sublime flash to the left, and a 3-point splash.

It was poetry. It shook the walls of the old building.

What opponent can stop that? Who can beat the Warriors when they have everything going at full throttle?

Nobody. That’s sort of important to know and point out, 11 victories from a title.

And though it was just a single play on the way to the Warriors’ commanding 101-86 victory over Memphis, it communicated everything important about this team and that player.

This is why the Warriors are already in total control of this series, this is why Curry will win the MVP on Monday (reported first by CSN Bay Area, with a 1 p.m. news conference as reported by this newspaper’s Marcus Thompson II).

And this is why the Warriors are in such a special place, time and mood.

Curry and his teammates know they can’t look too far ahead — not even to potentially winning the MVP, Curry said Sunday.

They realize that any little stumble or loss of focus could put them in jeopardy at any time.

But if they play like this for the rest of the playoffs, the Warriors are going to win the championship, there just isn’t much doubt anymore.

“It’s a fun time,” Curry said after his 22-point, seven-assist, four-steal performance. “The pressure is on.

“The vibe around the league is at a high, and I think we’re ready for the moment, just trying to stay in the moment.”

That was precisely the mood in and around the Warriors locker room after this game: Calm and confident fist-bumps, quick grins and flat-eyed determination not to screw this up.

Because it is all there for them now; that’s undeniable.

It’s not just because the defending champion Spurs were eliminated on Saturday, not just because the Cavaliers lost Kevin Love, and not just because the Warriors are 5-0 in the playoffs.

It’s all of those things, and so much more.

It’s because the best shot to knock out the Warriors might have been in the early rounds, before they got their proper footing.

It’s because the Warriors played Game 1 of the second round almost exactly like they played in their dominant regular season, against an opponent supposedly ideally suited to force the Warriors completely out of whack.

The Warriors are past the early nerves; they are in the moment; and they are blowing people out.

“I always feel like when you get to the second round, there’s a sense of, OK, we’ve got one under our belt, and the first round is always a little tricky,” coach Steve Kerr said Sunday.

“It feels like opening night, feels like the NCAA tournament. You know, you just kind of want to survive and advance and everybody is a little nervous, and then you move on and you kind of settle in a little bit.

“So I think that will happen for us. Tonight was a little tricky just because of all the time off, but I thought all in all, the effort and the intensity was right where we needed it.”

The Warriors universally believed that their Game 4 close-out effort was their best performance against New Orleans, and that their playoff run would build from there.

On Sunday, the Warriors were a little loose with the ball, and got spun around a few times on defense in the first half.

But everything tightened up eventually, and overall the Warriors were tougher than Memphis, more poised than Memphis, and just far better than Memphis.

Unless Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley Jr. makes an immediate and powerful return for Game 2, this series already has the Warriors’ thumbprint on it.

Then there will be the Western Conference finals and then the NBA Finals, and if the Warriors play this kind of defense and get that kind of Curry play … they’re not going to get beat.

“I mean, we thought that from the beginning,” forward Draymond Green said. “No disrespect for the Spurs or anyone else.

“We think we’re just as good or better than anybody in this league, and we go out there with that mindset. It’s not that other teams got injuries or someone is eliminated. We feel like we can beat anyone, and that’s been our mindset the entire year, and it’s not going to change now.”

The Warriors are right there, striding down the path to a championship. They have Curry floating at the 3-point arc, they have a steel-trap defense, they have opponents wavering and wobbling.

This is it; this is the moment of poetry and thunder; it will happen 11 more times, and then there will be a parade.